Tacoma Public Schools slashes 22 jobs for next school year. Are more cuts coming?
Tacoma Public Schools says it has eliminated nearly two dozen administrative positions and enacted other cost-cutting measures as it faces a projected $10 million budget shortfall for the coming school year.
The anticipated financial crunch for Pierce County’s largest school district, announced Friday in a post on TPS’s website, comes amid a wave of similar funding woes at districts across the state.
TPS said that the projected shortfall is “due to many factors,” including declining enrollment and the ending of temporary pandemic-era federal dollars for schools. But “most importantly,” the district attributed its situation to gaps in the state’s basic funding formula, which it said doesn’t fully cover needs such as school staff, special education services or student technology.
To address the looming deficit, the district said it has identified budget cuts for the 2023-24 school year, which include eliminating 22 central office administrative positions and cutting $6 million in expenses, although it didn’t specify what those were.
The identified job eliminations won’t impact school staffing, according to the district, which added that some of the cuts were reflected in vacant positions that won’t be filled.
“Staff impacted by these reductions have been notified, and they will continue working through the end of their work year,” the district said in its statement. “The decision to eliminate positions was extremely difficult.”
TPS’s budget for the upcoming school year isn’t finalized as it awaits the state’s spending plan to wrap up, meaning that funding decisions related to the district’s school staffing and school programming remain unsettled.
District spokesperson Kathryn McCarthy said that TPS’s goal is to be proactive to avoid any more major shifts to staffing.
“We’re going to prioritize those direct student-facing positions as much as possible,” she said.
TPS’s general fund budget for the 2022-23 school year shows $598 million in expenses against $571 million in revenues, resulting in the district’s ending fund balance getting cut by half to $28 million.
The district’s K-12 enrollment for the current school year was down from last year — from 27,982 to 27,170 students — budget documents show.
The Tacoma Education Association did not immediately return a message seeking comment Monday.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to clarify that TPS’s cost-cutting measures have already occurred.
This story was originally published April 24, 2023 at 1:29 PM.
